London's most urban riding school transforms lives through horses

Sandwiched between social housing blocks and busy train tracks in south London is Britain's most urban riding school, where children from disadvantaged backgrounds learn to ride horses as part of a project aimed at improving their wellbeing.

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Lead Education Co-ordinator Rachel Smith with a horse at the riding school.

About 160 children each week attend the Ebony Horse Club, a 30-year-old charity in the Brixton area of the capital which ranks amongst the most deprived in England and is a hotspot for knife crime.

Outside the stables, opened in 2011 by Queen Camilla, nine-year-old Matthew Sanchez shovelled horse dung into a wheelbarrow before his lesson. Like many of the children who come for classes, he had never encountered a horse before. But riding teacher Rachel Scott-Hayward, 37, said the children grow in confidence over weeks, learning to ride, grooming the animals and mucking out the stables.

Nylah Murray Charles, aged nine, said she was nervous before trotting on a horse for the first time. "I got scared a bit, but I was like maybe I should just give it a try... when I tried, it was actually great and I had fun," she said.

The club is an oasis of rural charm in Brixton, about three miles (5 km) from central London, where the smell of hay hangs in the air. Lessons are free — a contrast to similar stables in wealthier parts of the city, where a 30-minute class can cost around 50 pounds ($67).